The present invention relates to electrostatic copying devices in which an original is stripwise illuminated by means of a raster image reproducing system on a uniformly electrostatically charged emulsion carrier for the production of an electrostatic latent image.
A device of this type is for instance disclosed in the German Pat. No. 23 03 115 and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 3,592,592. Such copying devices provided with a raster image producing system have the advantage to produce with relatively little constructional expenditure a high-intensity image of the original on the copying carrier, whereby the original has to have only a small distance from the copy produced, which results in very small dimensions of the copying device.
A so-called book copy in which the original during the illumination process rests on a planar transparent support face of the copying device, is with this arrangement practically only possible when the light sensitive layer is arranged on a carrier which has at least a planar portion of a length corresponding to that of the original. Such a copying device is for instance disclosed in the German Offenlegungsschrift No. 24 21 661 and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,609. The therein used band-shaped recording carrier is especially subjected to considerable wear if it is provided with a layer of selenium which is especially suitable for electrophotographic purposes, but which is however relatively brittle.